What's at stake in this race?

The five county supervisors are among the most powerful politicians in Orange County, deciding some $11 billion in spending each year on key government services, including the sheriff’s department, disaster response and public health.

Technically, the Board of Supervisors is a nonpartisan body. But in reality, county Republicans would like to wrest control of the board from its current three-member Democratic majority. The outcome of the District 4 and 5 races — both currently represented by Democrats — could have big implications for the direction of county policy in the coming years.

Who's running

One Republican, Tim Shaw, and one Democrat, Connor Traut, are facing off in the November election to represent District 4 on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. (More on the candidates below.) The district includes Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, Placentia, Stanton and portions of Anaheim.

District 4 is currently represented by Doug Chaffee, who is termed out in January 2027. Democrats have a 10.5 percentage point registration advantage in the district over Republicans (40.4% of voters are registered as Democrats compared to 29.9% Republican). In District 5 — the other seat up for grabs Nov. 3 — another 30% of voters are registered as No Party Preference or with a minor political party.

District 4 map

The candidates

Tim Shaw is running for Orange County Supervisor, District 4.

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John McGuire

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Courtesy Tim Shaw

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Tim Shaw 
Orange County Board of Education trustee

Tim Shaw, a Republican, heads into this race after three-and-a-half terms on the La Habra City Council and one-and-a-half on the O.C. Board of Education (he’s in the middle of his second term).

Shaw narrowly lost the 2018 Board of Supervisors election to current Supervisor Doug Chaffee. Now he’s giving it another shot.

Shaw works as the government affairs director for the Pacific West Association of Realtors, and he's an adjunct professor of political science at Rio Hondo College. He identifies himself as a fiscal conservative with a focus on public safety, transportation infrastructure and school choice.

On the county Board of Education, Shaw has been a strong supporter of charter schools. He made waves during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the entire board, for suing Gov. Gavin Newsom over school closures. “We were of the opinion that if you feel comfortable sending your kid to class, OK, let's have that as an option,” he told LAist about that decision.

Before joining the La Habra City Council, Shaw worked for Republican State Sen. Bob Huff for eight years, and for O.C. Supervisor Janet Nguyen during her first year in office in 2007. Shaw worked under Nguyen’s then-chief-of-staff, Andrew Do, who went on to become an Orange County Supervisor himself — and later resigned and agreed to plead guilty to a felony bribery charge. Shaw said that while working with Do he “never saw one single thing that seemed fishy to me.” (Nguyen again won election to the Board of Supervisors in 2024.)

In the candidate's own words

Shaw did not respond to LAist’s multiple requests to provide written responses to a candidate survey. He did, however, sit down with LAist for an interview.

Shaw said his approach to homelessness would involve helping people get mental health care and substance abuse treatment. The issue is personal to Shaw — his late father was a drug and alcohol counselor with the O.C. Health Care Agency, and Shaw said he lost a brother to fentanyl. Shaw also said he would want to more closely analyze funding for homeless services.  “I think it's very easy to just throw the money, but let's go back and say, ‘What's really working?’”

Shaw said he is a strong believer in “local control” when it comes to housing and development, but he recognizes that state housing mandates are unlikely to go away anytime soon, and that cities and counties have to comply.  He said high-density housing can help alleviate the shortage in some places, such as around transit centers and places like Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle. But he noted that many families, like his, want backyards not apartment buildings. “So it's not gonna work for everybody,” he said.

On the county’s budget, Shaw said he would work to control spending and prioritize public safety in the face of declining state and federal funding.  "Fund the things that are necessary, the DA's office, the sheriff's (office), the firefighters, all the necessary things for public safety, and then you're gonna have to trim the sails,” he said. He added that part of a supervisor’s job is to “ be out cheerleading for the county” in order to attract and maintain state and federal funding for local programs.

Shaw also said he would advocate for more resources for parks in District 4.

More voter resources:

• Candidate website
• Notable endorsements: Republican Party of Orange County, California Republican Assembly, Congresswoman Young Kim (R-Anaheim), O.C. Supervisor Don Wagner, O.C. Sheriff Don Barnes.
• Full endorsement list here

Connor Traut is running for Orange County Supervisor, District 4.

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Courtesy Connor Traut

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Connor Traut

Mayor of Buena Park / business owner

Connor Traut, a Democrat, has served on the Buena Park City Council since 2018. Currently, he is the mayor, a position that is elected annually by fellow city council members.

For Traut, civic involvement started young. At age 18, Traut was appointed to the county Juvenile Justice Commission, where he inspected group homes and other facilities that are part of the juvenile justice system. At 19, he filed a 55-page complaint with the state’s election watchdog alleging a conflict of interest involving a former Anaheim mayor.

While a junior at Chapman University, Traut won a seat on the board of the Centralia Elementary School District, where he served from 2014 to 2018. Traut now works as an attorney in his family’s personal injury law firm.

On the Buena Park City Council, Traut supported a 2024 city sales tax increase to fund public safety and essential services, which was approved by voters. He has also touted his work on getting a regional homeless shelter up and running.

Traut is a big supporter of labor unions, which in turn are supporting him in his election bid. Traut helped pass a five-year Community Workforce Agreement in 2022 that requires Buena Park to hire a certain percentage of local workers and pay union wages, among other conditions. Supporters say such agreements ensure the local workforce benefits from public construction projects and help prevent wage depression. Opponents say they artificially drive up costs for taxpayers and amount to special interest deals.

Earlier this year, Traut was in the news for filing a complaint about a Buena Park police chaplain’s alleged anti-Muslim activity online. The chaplain was subsequently removed from his volunteer post.

In the candidate's own words

Traut said he would take measures to lower costs, including for housing and healthcare, and increase incomes by supporting good-paying jobs. He said he would partner with cities to build senior and workforce housing near jobs and transit, and expand housing vouchers and ADUs. “I support tenant protections, strong code enforcement against slumlords and rental assistance to keep people housed,” he wrote in his response to the LAist candidate questionnaire.

Traut told LAist he was running for supervisor “to make sure this county continues to deliver on its promise for what it is, which I think is the epitome of the American dream.” Part of that, he said, is making sure his young son can afford to live in Orange County.

The candidate noted that repairing the roads in his district was a major concern and said he would work to bring more tax dollars to District 4 from Measure M, the county half-cent sales tax.

On healthcare, Traut said he would work to keep people enrolled in CalOptima, including by hiring more workers to verify eligibility given new, stricter requirements put in place by the Trump administration. “Right now the caseload is far too high because of these stricter requirements,” he told LAist.

He also said he would partner with school districts and other entities to provide healthcare services to people not covered by insurance.

More voter resources:

• Candidate website
• Notable endorsements: Orange County Democratic Party, Buena Park Police Association, National Union of Healthcare Workers, and Orange County Supervisors Doug Chaffee, Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento. 
• Full endorsement list here.

What does the Orange County Board of Supervisors do?

• Supervisors adopt an annual county budget and supervise departments including the Health Care Agency, Public Works and the Registrar of Voters.
• They determine policy for jails, juvenile halls, foster care and the Sheriff's Department.
• Supervisors also get appointed to serve on the governing boards of other local entities, including CalOptima, the Orange County Transportation Authority, and the Orange County Fire Authority, which provide services to residents across the county.
• It serves as the de-facto city council of unincorporated areas of the county. If you live in an unincorporated part of Orange County, such as the neighborhoods of Andora-Fairhope in Buena Park or Mac-Syracuse in Stanton, the Board of Supervisors functions essentially as your city council. That means the supervisors control local laws and oversee services for roads, law enforcement, trash pickup, and development.
• You can find a map of all the unincorporated communities here.
• It creates local laws, known as ordinances.

Here are some things the Board of Supervisors doesn't do

The supervisors have limited power in the 34 incorporated cities in Orange County, where city councils run the show. The Board of Supervisors has little say over housing and development decisions within city limits.

What’s on the agenda for next term

• The county has had to contend with major cuts by the Trump administration to healthcare, social services and housing support. Nearly 40% of Orange County’s most recent budget came from state and federal funds. (The county’s budget has also been weakened by payouts to victims of the Airport Fire and sexual harassment and retaliation claims in the District Attorney’s Office. More on that below.)
  
• The O.C. Board of Supervisors continues to grapple with the intense scrutiny that followed after LAist uncovered that former Supervisor Andrew Do was funneling millions in taxpayer dollars to family members and close associates. While Do serves time in federal prison, the county is pursuing a civil lawsuit against Do and his associates. Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors has ordered audits to find out if the abuse went further and implemented reforms to try to prevent abuse of taxpayer funds in the future. Some have also questioned whether those reforms go far enough.
  
• The county is also in the middle of a tense legal battle with Mind OC, once its main mental health partner. The county wants to break its lease with Mind OC to operate the Be Well Orange mental health campus, accusing the organization of squandering $60 million in public funds. Meanwhile, Mind OC has launched a public relations offensive that paints the county as standing in the way of residents’ access to top-quality mental health care.
  
• The county has had to pay out millions in damages to victims of the 2024 Airport Fire, which was started by county Public Works employees. There still are outstanding claims. Last year, the county added approximately $400 million to its insurance fund to cover potential new payouts to fire victims. The county is facing a $32 million lawsuit from the state wildlands firefighting agency, CalFire, which seeks to recover its costs for fighting the Airport Fire.
  
• The county also is in the midst of settling claims of sexual harassment and retaliation in the District Attorney’s Office filed by former prosecutors and investigators.

Follow the money

We will have more information on campaign financing as we get closer to Election Day.

Here is campaign finance data from the primary held earlier this year. Shaw and Traut were the top two vote getters, forcing the upcoming Nov. 3 election.

How to get involved

• The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.